


Carving Out Space

by deliciously_devient



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amnesia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Supernatural Elements, Torture, nothing too graphic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 09:51:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13855311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliciously_devient/pseuds/deliciously_devient
Summary: They don't know who they are, but they know they belong together.





	Carving Out Space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bluandorange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluandorange/gifts).



> Inspired by bluandorange's rambles! go follow them, they're excellent

Red doesn’t remember much of the past few hours; of the past few anything, really, but the last few hours in particular were blurred more than usual.

 

His left knee is still an angry nest of pulsing pain, the artificial joint they’d installed whirring quietly as the other man, the one who’d been trapped in Hell with him, who’s screams had kept him awake long after they’d stopped, ushered him out of the maze like compound. He remembers the man frantically slapping his face and tugging him away, out of the mysteriously open cell doors and down a few hallways. He remembers gunfire and the scent of blood, remembers vaguely a set of mismatched eyes and a burning skull over them.

 

They’ve long since escaped the compound, but they haven’t stopped; they are in a forest of some sort, and it’s cold, the sun is quickly fading, and Red aches something awful. He has vague memories of conversations about “enhancing” him with genes extracted from a recently discovered specimen, and whatever they’d pumped him full of had burned his veins like molten lead, but it didn’t seem to be helping him.

 

“I ain’t got much more walking in me,” he pants, slowing to a stop, clutching a wound in his side. The stitches have come loose, and blood has been slowly seeping down his bare side; he stole a pair of boots off a dead guard, and the other man’s seemed to be metal prosthesis, but he hadn’t had the forethought to grab a shirt in their mad dash for freedom.

 

The other man hasn’t said anything during their escape, and he stares Red down with shrewd, brown eyes.

 

“We cannot stop now,” he says, and his voice is just as rough and low as Red’s. With a quick, abrupt movement, the other man slings Red onto his back in a fireman's carry, causing him to yelp. 

 

“We will not go back,” the other man snarls as he sets a quick pace through the trees, going faster than before despite the extra weight. “Never again.”

 

The other man carries him for hours, well into the night, seemingly using the stars for guidance. Eventually, though, even his strength wanes, and he finds a small hollow between two trees to set Red down. He groans, eyes nearly rolling back in his head as pain pulses like a drumbeat under his skin. The other man’s brown eyes are wide and worried; his hands flutter over Red’s wound, which has stained them both with blood.

 

It isn’t red, ironically; the fluid seeping from his wounds is a dark, sickly purple and he blinks at it. It seems thicker than it should be, and there’s a dark, shadowy haze over his vision. He swallows, laughing weakly.

 

“At least I won’t die there,” he rasps, and the other man makes a sharp, panicked noise. “Bury….bury me in the sun,” he says, eyes wide and scared as he looks into those brown eyes. There’s something...familiar about the other man; he gets a flash of a well-groomed beard and meticulously kept undercut superimposed over the wild haired man staring down at him with bared teeth.

“You are  _ not  _ going to die,” he snarls, and something blue sparks in his eyes, the moonlight, Red thinks. “Stay here, rest. I will find a safe place, and I will come back for you.”

 

Red nods slowly, closing his eyes. He trusts that the man will try to do such a thing; but he doubts that he will make it in time. He wishes it were daylight; the cold light of the moon offers him no warmth, and he is chilled to his core. His breathing is shallow, ragged, and the pain is so intense, he isn’t sure he feels it anymore.

 

He fades in and out, then; he has no strength left in him to fight off the darkness encroaching on his vision, so he doesn’t. 

 

He vaguely feels himself being moved, but he is too weak to even open his eyes. Gentle hands clean the wound in his side, he thinks, and he vaguely feels his prosthetic arm being removed, careful fingers cleaning the irritated skin. He thinks he is placed on something soft, covered by something warm. He thinks he sees brown eyes stare at him with concern.

 

He isn’t sure.

 

***

The man he escaped with and carried for endless miles is still asleep; it has been two days since they’d made it away from the compound, probably thirty six hours since the man fell unconscious, and he has not stirred yet.

 

He does not know much beyond basic first aid; he restitched the other man's wound, tended his prosthetic limb and removed it to prevent further irritation and has vigilantly watched for signs of infection.

 

The length of his unconsciousness is slightly concerning, except it seems to be increasing his rate of healing. The long surgical wound along his side that extended from his left pectoral to hip is all but a pink line, now, and the various bruises and scrapes he had were vanished completely. His cheeks are a healthy color, his breathing even, and he shows no signs of dehydration despite refusing water when Dragon had attempted to coax him into drinking.

 

He wonders how long they were kept captive; he isn’t sure how long his beard was before he was taken, but it is well over four inches now, ragged and covered in filth before he washed it. He had found an abandoned town not far from where he had originally left the other man. It appears to have been abandoned during the omnic crisis, well over half of it destroyed, and the other half eerily untouched. He had taken them into a small house on the edge that was surprisingly intact, and found the water still ran, but there was no electricity.

 

He might be able rig some up if he can pry some solar panels off one of the other homes; or perhaps they can inhabit another one once the other man recovers enough for them to explore. He doesn’t feel comfortable leaving the other man for any length of time; he has thus far only left his side to find the town, and then once more to scavenge food and other supplies, though he didn’t actually have to leave the house to do that.

He’s had a lot of time think, however, as he’s watched over the other man. He knows three languages; he is fluent in English and Japanese, and has a moderate understanding of Spanish, though he feels most comfortable in Japanese. He knows how to fire a gun, and he thinks he would feel most comfortable with a bow in his hands. He knows about the omnic crisis, he knows how to handle the tablet he’d found in the home, he knows pretty much everything there is to know about weapons and military strategy.

 

He does not remember his own name, where he is from, or any personal memories from before he woke up strapped to the bench the first time. He doesn’t remember getting the intricate tattoo on his left arm, he doesn’t remember how he got any of the scars on his body, he doesn’t remember how old he is. It’s like every memory of his  _ self  _ was taken, erased as if it had never been.

 

He wonders why he knows about weapons, why he thinks a katana is the most efficient way to slice through enemies, why there is a growling under his skin, as if something much bigger than him is trying to edge it’s way out. He wonders why he feels he shouldn’t look the other man in the eye during battle. He wonders why he even thought to free him from his cage, why he carried him for so long and for so far instead only securing his own safety.

 

He wonders if what he feels when he looks down at the man’s lax face is love.


End file.
